Just a vent......

IT's getting harder and harder to make ends meet! UGH! Gas is now 4.22 in my part of WV. I live 10 miles from a town with ONE grocery store. A small locally owned store. A big chain store is 40-60 minutes away. I used to go to the big town once a week to shop the larger stores for their loss leaders and because I can get better produce and cheaper prices on just about everything I buy. However with gas so high now I've decided to try to do most of my shopping in our small town. We have the one grocery store and a Dollar General. The meat prices are high at the grocery store and his produce is horrible. Half the time it's rotten. It's nothing to pick up a head of lettuce and it be totally rotten on the bottom, to find the apples shriveled up, etc.

Dh works 50 miles from home and has started staying with his parents in that town on the days he works. That leaves me with all the responsibility here(kids, house, etc.) and trying to work a full time job! I'm tired darn it!

I want so badly to NOT have to get a job outside the home after my summer job ends. I have one daycare child lined up for two days a week and would love to find at least one more. It ties me down, but it's better than driving on slick roads and being gone from my home and family!

I'm worn out from worrying about money, trying to keep the bills paid up, working full time, thunderstorms and rain every day for two weeks..........................ARRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!!

Sorry, I just needed a place to let it all out! Anyone else feeling overwhelmed and worried?

Big hug Sherri! :hug: I think more and more we are going to have to get to know our neighbors & pool our resources. Take turns paying for gas to go shop or having dh pic up produce & milk towards his day off and bring it home when he comes for a visit. It's a crazy world out there but we can find a way.
I think many are getting unable to cope & are moving closer to town.
Just dh & I so it's no big deal for us to make do. As winter hits it's going to be a lesson most should learn to follow now though, it'll make it much easier later down the road. Needs are front and center, the rest is just icing on the cake.

It is unfortunate for me that I fell of the wagon for about a year and a half.... because now I have a LOT of catching up to do in an economy that is not being very nice at all.

Maybe that is the silver lining the cloud for me... I actually started to really pay attention instead of just having my head stuck in the sand.

I agree with that lining in your cloud. You being ahead of the game will make you well...ahead of the game. Don't need to go overboard, just have some extras, and since most of those will probably be non parishables... if you don't use them this Winter, you can use them in the Spring.
Forewarned is forearmed as the free dictionary says.http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/...d+is+forearmed

I would go to the big store every other week. If your dh is staying with his parents when he comes home can you give him a list to go to a store near his parents

This is what I was going to suggest along with Darlene...hand over the grocery shopping reigns to hubby and let him bring it home with him. Even if you have to give him a cooler to put in the car with ice packs...it would be for the best. Or as someone else said, shop every 2nd or 3rd week in the big town. Pack your lunch, bring your coolers and ice packs - make an adventure out of it. Map out a route from the furthest store working your way across the big city towards the highway back to your home.

Are you able to buy in bulk and/or stock up? What about trying to freeze the dairy products so you don't have to run to town to grab it. You can just thaw out overnight. Or have powdered milk on hand as back up for when you do run out and hubby isn't due home for another 2 days. (Sorry these are just tips off the top of my head.)

BTW: All I kept envisioning was the cell phone commercial of the wife calling her husband and blurting out the grocery list at beyond warp speed so they can make the call be under one minute LOL (when I was suggesting that hubby do the groceries before he comes home)

Go make a cup of tea, sit back and relax and think about all the alternate ways of getting the groceries home. Have DH sit and join you on this - maybe there's something we havent mentioned that can help you?